Continuation support is requested for a research center on mental retardation and related aspects of human development. The research program encompasses five research institutes: the Institute on Mental Retardation and Intellectual Development, the Demonstration and Research Center for Early Education, the Center for Community Studies, the Institute on Youth and Social Development, and the Institute on Teaching and Learning. In each of these component institutes work groups of faculty scientists and assistants conduct studies that range from quite basic to clearly applied. Research programs will be continued in: early education of mentally retarded and culturally disadvantaged children; comparative development; individual differences in the development of personality and motivational traits, and their relationship to learning and performance efficiency; concept formation and abstracting abilities; acquisition and elaboration of language structures; integrated preschool education of retarded and nonretarded children; parent training through home visiting; learning and its facilitation; community adjustment of children and youth; development of curriculum and educational materials for preschool- and school-age retarded children; development of symbolic processes in retarded and normally developing children; social ecology of families; social alienation of adolscents; community adjustment of retarded persons. New research programs to be developed during the next year include development of formal thought (cognitive functions); efficacy of teaching methods designed to modify inadequate cognitive structures; comparative residential patterns for retarded adults; control of self-injurious behavior; characteristics of various schedules of reinforcement with retarded persons; an expanded program in behavioral-social ecology. The Center's core programs stress research faculty development, research support systems, and administration, supporting a broad range of research within a common setting. BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES: Haywood, H. C. A cognitive approach to the education of retarded children. Peabody Journal of Education, 1977, 54, 110-116. Haywood, H. C. The ethics of doing research...and of not doing it. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 1977, 81, 311-317.